This category is an acknowledgement of the many cultures throughout history that have made an invaluable contribution to the science, technology and/or the aesthetics of ceramic tiles that are not directly associated with the 19th & early 20th century Anglo Australian ceramic tile experience - such as Moorish Spanish experience - OETA will continually add new designs and ranges to this category.

 The tiles of this section have a complex and fascinating provenance that goes back hundreds of years, to the earliest years of ceramic tile manufacture on the Iberian Peninsula. 

The technique of tin-glazing first came to Europe via Islamic North Africa and thence to Spain and Portugal with the invasion of the Moors in the 8th century. The first regular production of tin-glaze tiles was in the 13th century at Malaga. These potteries supplied tiles for the buildings of the Nasrid kings of Granada, most notably the Alhambra, in the 2nd half of the 14th century, but neither Malaga nor the other Andalusian potteries produced exclusively Islamic tiles and ceramic wares. Artistic contact with the surrounding Christian communities was often strong e.g. the Christian King Peter of Seville commissioned Moorish artisans to decorate his palace - the Alcazar in 1360, where we see Muslim motifs and designs based on Kufic script combined with European subjects. The mingling of Moorish and Christian Gothic designs was known as the "mudejar" style.

By the late 14th century potteries in the Seville and Valencia regions began to emerge and by the early 15th century to rival those of Malaga. 

One of the methods of decoration used at Seville and Toledo was "cuerda seca" (dry cord), a technique imported from the Near East but known in Spain since the 11th century. This method was used extensively for tiles in the 15th & early 16th centuries when it began to give way to the "cuenca" method - similar in effect to the tubeline technique.

The proliferation of Sevillian cuerda seca tiles around 1500 AD coincided with the appearance of tiles with arrises. They are strongly indebted to the Mudejar from a technical point of view, though they can also be considered Renaissaance from an ornamental standpoint, owing to the Italian origin of much of the repertory. Muslim, Gothic and Romanesque motifs merged in this type of tile production.

Sevillian arris tiles are found throughout the western Mediterranean, Europe and as far away as the Caribbean. An exceptional group of ceramics, because of the quality and quantity involved, is the House of Pilatos in Seville. There was no noble house or public building in Renaissance Seville that did not bear its arris tiles on the floors, walls or even roofs.

Largely as a result of the Catholic expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula in 1610, the Spanish ceramic industry went into an irrevocable decline, eclipsed by Italy and then Holland. Not until the mid 19th century do we witness a rebirth of the Sevillian tile industry. When production by the Triana factories of Seville recommenced, their focus was on recovering the brilliance and quality of the tiles of the Golden Age by imitating those colours, textures and ornamental compositions.

The first three decades of the 20th century are undoubtedly the second golden period of Sevillian ceramics. The Ibero-American Exhibition held in Seville in 1929, preparations for which had begun decades earlier, constituted a huge stimulus for the ceramic industry. Buildings such as the Plaza de Espana and the Mudejar Pavilion by leading architect Anibal Gonzalez represent ceramic projects whose clear inspiration is the Sevillian Renaissance tiles of the 15th and early 16th centuries. 

OETA's Andalus Collection displays Series displays a great many of the characteristics of Sevillian Revival ceramic designs, including the "Cuerda Seca" effect (which shows as a dark, recessed outline on the tile surface), Islamic motifs (such as the eight pointed star and stylized Kufic script), Romanesque, and Italian Renaissance motifs (cherubs), plus the distinctive colour palette and compositional details. This range is ideally suited to houses with a classical aesthetic or Inter-War houses (Spanish Mission, Mediterranean, Art Deco).